The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - 101. Deal with Stress and Trauma Effectively ｜ Mastin Kipp

00:00:00.000 the best relationships I've seen are people who want different things, but know how to want

00:00:03.680 different things together. Because it's the things that you have in common that attract you. And it's

00:00:07.580 your differences, I think, that keep relationships really interesting. The problem is people have a

00:00:11.360 very hard time hanging in the tension of wanting different things and knowing how to navigate that

00:00:15.180 without defaulting into some type of blame or shame or guilt, especially if someone's in a

00:00:19.900 trauma response because they're not in their executive function, ventral vagal system, their

00:00:23.800 highest, best use of their nervous system. They're in a dysregulated state, which over time

00:00:27.720 does cause a lot of damage to the relationship.

00:00:33.680 Welcome to the Michaela Peterson podcast, episode 101. In this episode, I spoke with

00:00:39.760 Mastin Kipp. This is an episode from Russia. When I full on had COVID, I was super stressed,

00:00:46.400 worried, had to get home, couldn't get home because I had COVID. So I thought,

00:00:50.000 who else to talk to but Mastin Kipp, a number one bestselling author, speaker,

00:00:54.660 creator of functional life coaching for people who are seeking rapid transformation in their

00:00:59.220 lives. He's been featured on the Emmy award show, super soul Sunday, and recognized as a thought

00:01:05.020 leader for the next generation by Oprah herself. Now I know how many of you guys are Oprah fans.

00:01:11.160 So I figured this was a step in the right direction. All jokes aside, I think the only

00:01:16.160 way to survive in this insane life is to listen to every type of healing and psychological

00:01:20.460 trick and see what sticks, what works. I think there's something to Mastin's techniques. We

00:01:26.560 discuss trauma, functional life coaching, polyvagal theory, what it takes for a human to regulate

00:01:31.880 emotions, trauma bonding, the active listening process, MDMA, parts work, the importance of play,

00:01:38.360 which is something my dad talks about a lot, and more. I even cried at one point.

00:01:44.520 Thanks to Mastin very much for coming on.

00:01:50.460 Welcome to my podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Very

00:02:00.140 excited. You might not be as excited as me. I need a lot of trauma work. This is going to be

00:02:05.820 very useful for me and hopefully for other people as well. I hope so too. Okay. Can we start off by

00:02:11.840 you giving a brief background about who you are and what it is you do? Sure. And also before we

00:02:17.120 do that, you know, when people hear the word trauma, sometimes they equate it to something

00:02:20.420 scary, almost like cancer. I just want to let everybody know that trauma work is the thing

00:02:24.740 that's going to help you go to the next level in your life. So if you want the next level in love,

00:02:28.740 relationships, your body, finances, whatever, health and wellness, trauma work is super

00:02:33.060 important. So I just want to put that plug in there and that's what we'll talk about today.

00:02:36.440 For me, I used to be a music manager back in the day. I was in Los Angeles for many years

00:02:41.560 working with bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit,

00:02:44.560 Linkin Park, and stuff like that.

00:02:46.500 And through a very long series of events,

00:02:49.000 realized that is not the path I want to be on.

00:02:51.360 And kind of reluctantly got into the coaching space

00:02:54.820 over many years.

00:02:55.540 I feel like the universe dragged me into it

00:02:57.880 because I had other plans.

00:03:00.020 And I was never really satisfied

00:03:01.540 with the answers I was getting.

00:03:03.880 I love growth.

00:03:05.000 I love learning, very much like you and your family.

00:03:08.680 But I was never satisfied with a lot of the results

00:03:10.600 I was getting.

00:03:11.000 I grew up in a science house. My father's a PhD in biology, would edit peer-reviewed journals.

00:03:15.580 And we had a really rigorous scientific process growing up. And when I would question different

00:03:20.240 personal development, spiritual or therapeutic modalities, nobody really had answers. They just

00:03:23.640 kind of had, they had like philosophies basically. And what I had noticed when I started getting my

00:03:28.780 own private practice is that people would set a goal, but then not take the action to achieve it

00:03:33.840 most of the time. And after a lot of self-discovery with myself and with my clients and no formal

00:03:38.960 training, started to realize that people had been through adverse experiences that were impacting

00:03:42.820 their goal achievement. And I did not know that was called emotional trauma. I did not know

00:03:47.160 anything about the nervous system. I was just watching people in my practice and helping them

00:03:52.220 resolve these things and address these things transparently, helping them know I have no

00:03:57.800 background or credentials or anything like that, but people were getting results. And then probably

00:04:02.540 I've been doing this like 12 years, somewhere around 2015, I started getting really curious,

00:04:07.500 What are the mechanisms of action?

00:04:09.060 Like what the heck is happening in front of me over the last six years?

00:04:13.000 And that's when I really started to like apply that science side and learn more about the

00:04:17.020 mechanisms of action regarding the nervous system and what emotional trauma really is

00:04:20.720 and how things work inside the body so I could speak intelligently because I really

00:04:25.860 wanted to make sure that we were doing things that had efficacy and their evidence-based

00:04:29.880 approaches.

00:04:30.800 And it looked like I was helping people, but I wanted to trust and verify.

00:04:33.600 And then once I got into the trauma space, and in terms of like all the science behind it, it was just verified everything I'd saw in private practice. And then very quickly realized there is a huge need for this work in the world, because, you know, the public perceives therapy more or less as looking at your past, which can be valuable, and coaching is moving forward.

00:04:54.280 But there has to be a context of both of those kind of things in your timeline so that when you move forward in context to what happened to you, it starts to make your behavior currently make sense.

00:05:05.180 And so that's why I created Functional Life Coaching.

00:05:07.820 And that's a very brief summary of what I do.

00:05:11.040 I've been on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday, which has been amazing and have really gone into the trauma space really intensely the last 12 years, explicitly in our marketing the last three years.

00:05:21.720 But we've always been doing the trauma work.

00:05:24.000 And it's interesting because there's a lot more interest in the topic now, which is cool.

00:05:28.320 So it's a fun topic.

00:05:30.480 Alternative health practices seem to be gaining traction, maybe partly due to social media

00:05:35.200 and the great need for it.

00:05:37.300 Totally.

00:05:37.920 Yeah.

00:05:38.260 And you know what's ironic about that, though, is that the word alternative versus traditional,

00:05:42.520 if you really think about it, Ayurveda is traditional medicine and Western medicine

00:05:47.320 is relatively new.

00:05:48.720 So there's this kind of arrogance in science that says, until we admit something into

00:05:53.360 to reality that it's not real until human beings admit it. And that's just not the case. And so

00:05:58.940 I would argue that the Western medical system has a very important role in the world. But

00:06:06.560 if anything, it's alternative to what has been around for thousands of years. And there's,

00:06:10.740 I mean, the peer reviewed data on RU beta goes back to thousands of years, right? It's just got

00:06:14.960 a lot of efficacy to it. And the same thing goes a lot of the somatic trauma work because human

00:06:19.040 beings have been experiencing trauma since we've been human. So we've had a lot of practices over

00:06:22.480 thousands and thousands and thousands of years to regulate. The scientists are catching up now.

00:06:27.900 But I think what we're doing is actually traditional and the Western stuff is alternative.

00:06:32.260 And there's a good blend of two, but people just want what works. And that's why I think

00:06:35.840 we're talking today to talk about efficacy and what works. I'm very glad you made that

00:06:41.080 distinction. I agree. I think probably a good place to start is just to describe what is trauma.

00:06:47.980 Sure. Well, it depends on who you ask, right? So basically one of the problems with the space is

00:06:52.260 that there isn't a unified definition. And yeah, you could go to the DSM-5, which is the Diagnostic

00:06:57.680 and Statistics Manual for Mental Health Disorders. I would argue that the definitions in post-traumatic

00:07:02.420 stress in that book fall short of what trauma is. You can look at SAMHSA. I mean, there's lots

00:07:08.360 of places. The way that I define trauma as my credential is an NMD, which is not a medical

00:07:13.720 doctor. I say that kind of jokingly, but it's true because people think I'm a doctor or something

00:07:19.100 and I'm not. But the way that I look at trauma is it's any experience of threat, disconnection,

00:07:27.020 isolation, or immobilization. So threat, disconnection, isolation, or immobilization

00:07:32.340 that results in the chronic or ongoing dysregulation of your nervous system, your endocrine

00:07:39.120 system, your emotional body, your immune system, your heart, or your spirit. So if you're in a

00:07:46.100 dysregulated state or a non-optimal state in your nervous system, immune system, endocrine system,

00:07:51.820 emotional body, or physical health or spirit long-term, then there is some type of trauma

00:07:57.400 to look at. And that's how I define it. And by that definition, I'm not sure I know anyone who

00:08:02.440 doesn't have trauma. And it's an important context to realize it's not just some egregious,

00:08:08.340 aggressive, physical injury. That's maybe blunt force trauma, but trauma is such a vast

00:08:15.780 topic. And depending on your race, ethnicity, background, gender, sexual orientation,

00:08:21.720 each person's trauma is unique and different. So there is no one size fits all approach,

00:08:27.020 but our goal is to be an optimal state for the most part, most of the time. And if we're not,

00:08:31.360 there's usually some type of trauma holding us back. So one experience could cause trauma in

00:08:37.360 one person and not bother another person. A hundred percent. Yes. And people ask,

00:08:41.860 why is that right? Well, you look at what is the state of someone's nervous system,

00:08:45.540 an endocrine system, an immune system going into a traumatic event? How secure are their

00:08:50.460 relationships? How much emotional proximity do they have to the people around them? Do they feel

00:08:55.240 safe? When they go through a traumatic event, what happens afterwards, right? Is it love supported?

00:09:01.320 Is there an empathetic witness? Do they have a resilient system already? Or is it pushed under

00:09:06.420 the table, not talked about disbelieving gaslit, right? So it really depends. So when we look at

00:09:11.080 post-traumatic growth versus post-traumatic stress, a lot of it has to do with what happens

00:09:15.120 before and after a specific event, because it's not really the event. And it sounds kind of crazy,

00:09:19.420 but it's not really the event that's traumatizing. It's what happens afterwards. And it's how

00:09:24.120 much outside your resiliency or your body's ability to handle stress that you go.

00:09:30.140 And different people have different things, just like weights, right? Arnold Schwarzenegger,

00:09:33.920 when he's five years old, bench pressing 300 pounds would hurt him, right? But when he's

00:09:37.940 later when he's grown, he has a lot more muscle, easy peasy. And so it really depends on the state

00:09:43.320 of your nervous system, your endocrine system, your immune system, and your relational supports

00:09:46.580 before, during, and after. And then also in America, your zip code, far more than your

00:09:51.520 genetic code, determines your lifespan. And there are studies that show within a few miles of each

00:09:56.300 other, lifespans ranging from 30 to 40 years longer, just on the other side of the tracks

00:10:02.540 because of the socioeconomic status. So there's a lot that goes into trauma and why people have

00:10:07.920 of different responses to it. So it's a very nuanced topic for sure. It's very nuanced.

00:10:13.280 Yeah. And complicated for sure. This episode is brought to you by Superspeciosa. Superspeciosa

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00:12:03.680 slash MP promo code MP for 20% off. Enjoy the rest of the episode. What happens to the nervous

00:12:10.080 system when somebody is traumatized? Um, well, it depends. Um, it depends on the type of traumas

00:12:16.500 and what, what ages are traumatized. Right. So let's talk about like a young child, right? Let's

00:12:20.820 about maybe a five-year-old, right? So a five-year-old, you know, we know children don't

00:12:27.720 have a fully developed autonomic nervous system. Obviously the prefrontal cortex is not happening

00:12:32.080 a lot at that time. I don't know the hippocampus limbic system has a lot more left to develop

00:12:37.820 and trauma most of the time is relational. So it's someone close to you or someone that you

00:12:43.780 know, who's doing something to you. It's also what's called multi-sensory. So it's not like

00:12:47.600 just a sound traumatize you or a feeling traumatize you or an image traumatize you or a smell

00:12:52.480 traumatize you or a place traumatize you. It's a combination of all those things. And so when we

00:12:58.200 look at traumatic events, we have to realize they're multi-sensory experiences. They're not

00:13:03.880 thought of. It's not like reading a book traumatizes you typically. It's an experience

00:13:08.800 that traumatizes you. And you have a nervous system that's not well equipped for that experience.

00:13:14.320 And so what happens is we brilliantly push it away, dissociate from it, uh, try not to

00:13:19.520 look at it.

00:13:20.080 And then over time that lives in the system.

00:13:23.340 And what happens in the psyche is the psyche parts of the psyche freeze at that age.

00:13:28.000 So you may have a five-year-old, an unconscious associated five-year-old running your life

00:13:31.960 in certain areas, wherever there's like a, and by the way, it's got this, this can also

00:13:35.220 stack over time, like a geological dig.

00:13:37.380 So you have like a five-year-old that makes a decision that informs to have what happens

00:13:40.840 at a seven-year-old moment and then a 13-year-old moment, a 22-year-old moment.

00:13:43.720 now you're like 35 going like, what the hell is going on? So it's a geological dig to understand

00:13:48.320 where those parts of the psyche are there. And to recognize that what they're doing is not a

00:13:52.320 limiting belief. It's not something that's wrong with you. It's not a pathology. It's an appropriate

00:13:56.460 response to the amount of challenge that you experienced and the trauma that you went through

00:14:00.100 and to honor the nervous system's responses. So we get fractured and fragmented in our psyche.

00:14:06.560 Those parts get dissociated from, pushed down and repressed. And then what ends up happening is we

00:14:12.540 We have what's called an inflexible nervous system.

00:14:14.460 So our ability to respond to stress and stimulus, our range decreases because we don't have

00:14:21.120 this ability to regulate, this ability to build new neural pathways, to have neuroflexibility

00:14:27.080 and things like that because we're in these like traumatized states.

00:14:30.220 And a trauma response is whether they're dissociative, down-regulated, what are called dorsal vagal

00:14:34.640 or immobilized responses where we're depressed, checked out, not paying attention to things,

00:14:39.400 avoiding things, or if it's more of a sympathetic response, which is anxiety, stress, cortisol,

00:14:43.740 adrenaline, we kind of get stuck and frozen in these two different states. And it's really hard

00:14:48.300 to imagine something outside of those realms. And so we start to think that life is just this

00:14:53.380 emotional state of these few emotional states, and eventually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:14:58.140 And it can really start to damage your nervous system, endocrine system, immune system over time.

00:15:05.580 And when you look at chronic illness, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who has a chronic illness that doesn't have an emotionally traumatic antecedent, meaning something happened traumatically first that then informed the system to have a chronic illness response because a lot of times when someone has, for example, cancer, it's not like your thoughts give you cancer, but if you have a dysregulated emotional state and a dysregulated immune system because of trauma, your system becomes more susceptible to pathogens and carcinogens, right?

00:15:33.680 And so chronic illness will a lot of times illuminate areas of highest susceptibility.

00:15:38.680 And yes, there are absolutely medical protocols to follow that have to be followed for sure,

00:15:44.580 depending on what you have.

00:15:45.780 And there's typically an emotional antecedent to that that is correlative, if not causal

00:15:51.320 sometimes in chronic illness too.

00:15:53.040 So a lot of things can go wrong when we don't do our trauma work for sure.

00:15:57.600 Okay.

00:15:58.160 That's interesting.

00:15:59.500 I've been delving more into trauma and that kind of work since I got healthier because

00:16:04.580 I've realized I have a lot of trauma.

00:16:06.740 I've been through a lot of experiences, especially being sick, seeing family members sick.

00:16:10.220 And I have states I'll get into where I'm like, my brain just leaves for a while and

00:16:15.300 I operate on, in just go mode.

00:16:17.860 And I've had concerns lately about what kind of damage stress can do to the body.

00:16:23.580 Like it stops you from sleeping.

00:16:25.140 i've noticed if i get really stressed it'll upset my digestion it won't matter what i eat but like

00:16:31.060 i'll be nauseous i won't want to eat and if something hits you that hard and starts causing

00:16:35.100 physical problems it's definitely something to start looking into 100 seriously yeah and the

00:16:40.320 world's cutting edge functional medicine doctors like know this because ultimately people aren't

00:16:45.000 going to be compliant on a functional medicine plan if the trauma responses are there right so

00:16:49.080 they're starting to realize this um and and certainly with chronic illness there absolutely

00:16:53.660 are correlations. And I would say most of the time causations to the majority of chronic illness

00:16:58.340 responses. And it's really about, for me, chronic illness or any type of mental illness, I say that

00:17:05.820 kind of, it's more like, to me, it's not post-traumatic stress disorder, it's post-traumatic

00:17:11.340 stress response. It's an appropriate response to what happened. But whenever there's some type of

00:17:16.280 diagnosis, there's an opportunity to develop a relationship there, or there's an underdeveloped

00:17:21.140 relationship with that part of your body. And so turning towards it, noticing it, befriending it

00:17:26.340 can be a very important step, not just trying to numb it. And sometimes medication is necessary to

00:17:32.180 stay within a window of tolerance, but it's not like a long-term fix typically.

00:17:36.520 Yeah. I had a terrible experience with long-term SSRI use. So I'm not a big fan of those for long-term

00:17:43.520 actual solutions. So say you've been traumatized by something, some experience you've had,

00:17:50.420 and you get triggered enough that you kind of disassociate or you go into derealization or

00:17:56.800 something like that. Are there easy steps to bring you back to yourself?

00:18:02.160 Such a great question. Yeah. So what I'm about to say, depending on where people are in their path,

00:18:09.740 they may or may not like it. So I think that the most important piece of science to come out,

00:18:14.580 probably since Langley wrote the book on the autonomic nervous system in 1921

00:18:21.360 is the polyvagal theory by Dr. Stephen Porges. And I look at Langley as like the Newton

00:18:26.760 of the nervous system, like Isaac Newton, Newtonian physics, like, okay, cool. We're

00:18:30.900 starting to understand how the world works. What Porges has done, Dr. Porges has done with

00:18:34.680 polyvagal theory is equivalent, in my opinion, to what Einstein did with relativity for the

00:18:39.040 nervous system. Like it's like a major shift and upgrade in how we look at the nervous system.

00:18:44.580 And in polyvagal theory, there's a few tenets of, and polyvagal theory is the science of safety and connection and regulation, right?

00:18:51.040 And when we look at like, what does it take for a human being to regulate, which is basically your question, right?

00:18:55.380 We have to have co-regulation, which is togetherness, right?

00:18:58.940 And so this idea that I have to work on myself or love myself enough until or I have to get myself out of something is a very more of an avoidant response, typically because there have not been competent protectors or people in your life who are able to create safety and be like a container for you to have different emotional experiences.

00:19:16.260 but the best way to regulate is co-regulation, which is not codependency. The difference between

00:19:22.700 codependency and co-regulation is that when you're in codependent responses, another person becomes

00:19:28.660 your only form of regulation. You need the person to regulate, which is an appropriate response when

00:19:33.240 you're a young child because you don't have the anatomy. Co-regulation basically says together

00:19:37.520 we're better. When people co-regulate and they have relationships, they can share what matters

00:19:42.800 to them and be heard and seen and listened to and validated. By the way, not necessarily agreed with

00:19:48.180 on the facts. You can agree, you can acknowledge someone's emotional state and hear their emotional

00:19:53.540 state and not need to agree on the facts and still be an effective listener. But that co-regulation

00:19:59.960 is like such a biological imperative for us. And so when we're checked out, dissociated,

00:20:05.240 if you can create safe relationships where someone can check on you. And for me, when I'm in that

00:20:10.420 state. I don't know if you've watched stranger things, but I call that the upside down. I'm in

00:20:14.380 the upside down. Oh my God. I don't know how many people do that, but when I had, sorry to interrupt

00:20:20.520 when I was in horrible SSRI withdrawal, I was watching stranger things. And I was like, that

00:20:26.600 is what my life feels like. That's exactly what it feels like that horror and darkness and grayness.

00:20:31.920 So yes, it's a lot. And it's nice to let certain people in your life know. And when I'm truly in

00:20:37.960 the upside down, like I'm not verbal. I can basically only blink because I'm so just like

00:20:44.460 gone. Right. And so people ask me specific people in my life, are you in the upside down? I'll just

00:20:49.420 kind of blink. And they know that that's like a yes. Right. And it's important to have people

00:20:53.620 like that in your life. Now, if you don't have people like that in your life, the next best

00:20:56.980 thing is, is to maybe just really, it just sounds really basic, but we want to reconnect to the

00:21:01.360 breath and the body and like literally just like touch your body and ask yourself, where is my body

00:21:05.200 right now in time and space because when we're checked out and dissociated or depersonalized

00:21:09.900 basically we're not feeling our body we're not it's affect right affect is emotional data coming

00:21:16.120 up from the body to the brain it's so intense that we're kind of checked out from it if you

00:21:20.700 don't know how you feel in your body the term for that's called alexithymia and it's important to

00:21:25.920 start to just pay attention to your body and like literally place a hand there to reach out and let

00:21:31.020 somebody know how you're feeling. Here's a safe person. It sounds really basic, but when you're

00:21:36.920 in that type of state that you're talking about, there isn't a lot to do because you don't have a

00:21:41.500 lot of energy. And just like literally it's like someone's hand on your hand can be so valuable.

00:21:46.200 And the majority of mental health protocols and personal development protocols and spiritual

00:21:50.840 protocols, the message on some level is you have to self-regulate or we'll medicate you,

00:21:55.980 or you have to self-regulate or you're not enough. You have to self-regulate or you're not

00:22:00.800 spiritual enough or you're not developing enough, but the science and polyvagal theory is so clear

00:22:05.020 that to, to improve self-regulation, we need a better co-regulation. And that's like a primary,

00:22:09.920 primary thing for people to realize is that we need each other. And that's for people who are

00:22:14.480 more avoidant. They're like, for anxious people, they get really excited. You know, you're very

00:22:19.420 excited about that. But we do need each other to better regulate. And for me, what I've done is

00:22:24.320 I've gotten proactive in my life because when I'm in a state, like you're talking about,

00:22:27.260 it's really hard for me to reach for support. So I set up support ahead of time so that I

00:22:32.880 don't have to reach for it when I'm in that state. It's already like on the books for like a

00:22:37.380 Thursday. I have like consistent coaching or therapy or body work or whatever so that I know

00:22:41.940 that I have these touch points throughout my day and week so that I'm not, if I get into one of

00:22:46.460 those dissociated states, I know I have something coming up that'll help me co-regulate and get out

00:22:51.120 of it. So I set that up when I'm in a better state and then it helps me not be as down for as long

00:22:55.300 either, but most people don't do prevention. They have to do it when they're down and then

00:22:58.540 learn from it. Um, but if you're, if, if you want to get out in front of it, having some type of

00:23:02.960 consistent support in your life, that's scheduled is super important too. Okay. That makes a ton of

00:23:07.980 sense to me. I think a lot, a lot of the people I've brought on the podcast are like, you know,

00:23:11.800 fix yourself. You have to reach this certain level. Then you're ready for relationships so

00:23:16.260 that you avoid this codependency thing, but we're social creatures, right? I, I, so does it see to

00:23:21.680 me, that's just someone, anyone who's, I used to say that, by the way, people who say that

00:23:25.060 are terrified of being hurt again, terrified of losing themselves in a relationship again,

00:23:30.080 terrified that if they find a relationship that they can't have love or they can't have a business

00:23:34.020 or success because they collapsed last time or the other person collapsed. What's true is

00:23:38.540 trauma happens in relationship and healing happens in relationship. And there may be some baseline

00:23:44.980 of like self-love that might be important to arrive to, but the honest truth is in relationship,

00:23:51.180 specifically romantic relationships, but certainly professional too,

00:23:54.620 the highest purpose of them is to be a caretaker of each other's trauma

00:23:58.120 and to be a place to regulate, not a place to go to dysregulate each other.

00:24:04.020 And your partner will absolutely, if you choose wisely,

00:24:09.320 love parts of you that you could never love on your own

00:24:12.260 because it's a relational dyad, it's a relational experience,

00:24:16.040 it's something that happens together.

00:24:17.220 So, um, that I love myself until thing is a very classic avoidant perfectionist mindset

00:24:24.300 that has an underbelly of a lot of fear, either collapse or, um, some type of dysregulation

00:24:30.400 again, which by the way, can only be fixed in a relationship, not on your own.

00:24:35.700 Okay.

00:24:36.320 Okay.

00:24:36.560 So then here's a question for relationships.

00:24:39.120 What happens if you and someone you're either in a romantic relationship or close with,

00:24:43.720 what if you guys experience a traumatic experience together and then the experience of this other

00:24:49.900 person is now traumatizing yeah so that's so i work with a lot of uh specifically men who are

00:24:56.460 in relationship with a woman who has you know a ptsd or cptsd diagnosis i hate the word i hate

00:25:02.060 complex that see i hate cptsd is the worst the worst name for something what is that it's just

00:25:07.780 complex ptsd which means you have multiple traumatic experiences so like it's worse yeah 0.99

00:25:11.800 but it's like it's like the people that name this shit it's like it's like it's like it's not that 0.97

00:25:15.600 complex and like panic attack like why do you call it panic attack like just saying panic attack 0.97

00:25:19.760 makes you want to have a panic attack like i just think the names of these things are like the worst

00:25:23.160 um and like saying something is complex like in of itself makes it more complex than it needs to

00:25:28.700 be but different story but i work with people who maybe one person has more trauma than the other

00:25:33.220 person and what you're talking about is more vicarious trauma uh and or trauma bonding and

00:25:38.600 it really depends on the type of support you have, right? Because you can work through those

00:25:44.160 things because when you're in a, if someone has vicarious trauma, meaning the person that they're

00:25:48.900 in relationship with has a lot of trauma and it impacts the other person. There's a lot of

00:25:54.100 opportunity for growth there. You need to work with a practitioner who understands they're not

00:25:59.020 just trauma informed, they're trauma trained. And specifically in the context of helping people

00:26:02.940 work through developmental or early childhood trauma as it's showing up in adult relationships.

00:26:08.960 Because any relational issue that comes up, in my opinion, and the data seems to support this,

00:26:15.680 is some type of unresolved thing from childhood that's here to be healed. And so when you look

00:26:20.760 at relational ruptures or relational issues, relationships grow just like muscle with

00:26:27.220 micro traumas and they rupture and then there's a repair process, right? So that's how relationships

00:26:30.760 grow. So that is absolutely a time to do the work. And you want to make sure that you're with someone

00:26:36.380 who understands how to regulate their own nervous system. And then what we're really talking about

00:26:41.640 is differentiation, which is being fully yourself and your partner being fully themselves in a

00:26:46.760 relationship. But you're in a relationship. Individuation is when you break up or get

00:26:51.700 divorced. And differentiation, you know, people get divorced, they say, well, we have irreconcilable

00:26:57.720 differences. People say, well, we want different things, so we shouldn't be together. But the truth

00:27:01.820 is the best relationships I've seen are people who want different things, but know how to want

00:27:06.020 different things together. Because it's the things that you have in common that attract you and it's

00:27:09.900 your differences, I think, that keep relationships really interesting. The problem is people have a

00:27:13.700 very hard time hanging in the tension of wanting different things and knowing how to navigate that

00:27:17.500 without defaulting into some type of blame or shame or guilt, especially if someone's in a trauma

00:27:22.440 response because they're not in their executive function, ventral vagal system, their highest

00:27:26.620 that's used to their nervous system. They're in a dysregulated state, which over time

00:27:30.040 does cause a lot of damage to their relationship. So that's a little bit of a verbose answer,

00:27:34.380 but I hope it was at least somewhat helpful. That was. Okay. So say you're in a relationship

00:27:42.940 with somebody and you're still at the point where you guys trigger each other. Okay.

00:27:49.800 What's the first step there? If it's just like you're so triggered by each other,

00:27:54.540 it's just stress as soon as you guys speak yeah um well okay you need other people to like yeah

00:28:00.680 work on yourself and then mend that relationship or what in my opinion yeah so great question um

00:28:06.480 so okay so a couple things polyvagal theory one of the other tents of polyvagal theory is this idea

00:28:10.400 of neuroception and neuroception is your neuro is nervous system septions perception so neuroception

00:28:16.700 is the your nervous system's perception of your environment right and it's mostly below the neck

00:28:21.100 Okay. And what happens is we get triggered before we know we're triggered.

00:28:24.760 Yes. Right. And so like, first of all, you're never going to not get triggered. It's going to

00:28:28.660 happen. It's more about how fast you notice it. And when you notice it, what do you do? Right.

00:28:34.820 And the more regulated you are, the better able you are to handle triggers. Now triggers are

00:28:40.440 going to happen, but ultimately I think the most fundamental skillset in a relationship

00:28:46.820 is the ability to listen to somebody else,

00:28:51.580 set yourself aside,

00:28:53.040 and try your best to tap into what they're thinking

00:28:56.160 and feeling outside of what you think is going on.

00:28:59.760 Because when someone really feels heard

00:29:01.960 and validated and seen,

00:29:04.040 the majority of fights tend to stop.

00:29:06.900 The problem with that

00:29:08.340 is that that's not really a common skillset.

00:29:11.860 And most people have such a lack of reciprocity,

00:29:14.500 like their tanks are so empty

00:29:15.640 once they've gotten to that point.

00:29:16.820 that nobody wants to go first and be a listener because they think if they listen that they're

00:29:22.000 not gonna get their needs met so if you can start to cultivate a process of active listening which

00:29:26.960 we can talk about what that looks like um and actually hear somebody else without trying to

00:29:31.680 fix them without trying to change them without trying to pathologize them or be their coach or

00:29:35.020 be their psychologist right and just literally taking what they're saying on an emotional level

00:29:39.780 um many relational problems get resolved because most people just want to be heard

00:29:45.840 um it's not a and especially if you're a masculine person talking to a feminine person it's never

00:29:53.140 about the logistics okay it's never ever about the logistics that could be a man or a woman gay

00:29:58.760 straight lgbtqa plus masculine feminine of course are energies um but uh it's it's very rarely is

00:30:05.260 about the facts and mostly it's about emotional connection and when you're fighting and triggered

00:30:09.580 you're both missing each other emotionally basically both asking the other person to hear

00:30:13.660 them and no one's able to do that. The goal was one person should go crazy at a time in a

00:30:17.920 relationship, hopefully. Okay. So you talked about active listening as in listening without

00:30:25.460 immediately trying to fix all the other person's problems. Is that what it is?

00:30:28.680 Kind of. Yeah. So in the, in the, in the most ideal setting with active listening, right? You

00:30:32.720 have a process. Um, I learned this process from Dr. Ellen Bader at the couples Institute and she

00:30:38.180 call it and she's like so good at what she does but basically you have um actual process and

00:30:44.740 protocol for emotional conversation so it's not just like right before bed everyone's about to

00:30:49.460 be asleep it's like is now a good time to talk like that's not that's not the goal right or like

00:30:55.060 and just right when someone's leaving or whatever you want to actually schedule time and you want

00:30:58.960 to come to that conversation in a time that's most regulating for both people where hopefully

00:31:03.800 you're well fed have good blood sugar levels low inflammation maybe you just came off a massage

00:31:07.840 or acupuncture or something, so you're in a good regulated state. And then you have roles. One

00:31:14.060 person is someone who's going to share, right? And be the initiator who's like, I like to have

00:31:19.080 an emotional conversation. And then the other person is what's called the listener or the

00:31:24.600 inquirer who's going to do the listening and ask questions. And those are the roles that you're in,

00:31:30.020 right? So you're not going to switch because what happens is one person starts to share

00:31:34.620 and that triggers the other person all of a sudden they go right into sharing their shit and like

00:31:38.400 both people basically um end up uh talking over each other if you think about it right like so 0.96

00:31:43.520 like this green juice right the juice inside this container is more feminine and the container is

00:31:48.580 more masculine right so what you're setting up is a process where one person is the container

00:31:53.560 and one person is the juice or the person who's sharing emotionally and what you basically do

00:31:58.420 it. You try to stick to one topic, one, not like 50,000 things, one topic at a time. And you start

00:32:05.040 to share slowly because what happens is, especially if there's like a lot pent up in there, you might

00:32:11.140 say, well, I want to talk to you today about last week when you brought home the almond milk and I

00:32:14.640 really wanted to be coconut milk or whatever it is. And when that happened, I felt blah, blah,

00:32:19.580 blah, blah, blah. And by the way, your sister, and then now the topic changes, like we don't

00:32:23.620 want to do that. We want to stay on one topic at a time and go slower, like one to two minutes

00:32:27.740 of sharing that allows the other partner to then listen and go, okay, so what I heard you say is

00:32:33.160 when I brought the almond milk back and not the coconut milk, you felt really missed because you

00:32:37.440 know, because for you, coconut milk is important because the recipe, blah, blah, blah. Oh my God,

00:32:42.740 if I were you, I would feel really angry or whatever, right? And you take a moment to

00:32:46.700 acknowledge that moment, but here's the magic question. You ask the question, okay, but did I

00:32:52.180 miss anything? Because a lot of times when someone recaps something, they're not going to say the

00:32:56.640 right word, the right feeling, or the other person might have more things coming up that

00:33:01.460 they didn't realize. So that did I miss anything helps you not have to recap perfectly. And someone

00:33:06.640 can say, well, what you missed is I was really mad. And then all of a sudden something else comes

00:33:10.100 up. And when that starts to happen, both parties are learning at that time, right? About what's

00:33:15.200 happening in the person who's sharing. And you basically repeat that process, right? Well,

00:33:19.620 so what I heard you say was you're really mad because actually the almond milk had carrageenan

00:33:23.120 in it and it's really bad for your digestion and like it's like i don't even care about your health

00:33:27.460 because you know how much ibs all this thing starts to happen right and then eventually you

00:33:32.040 say did i miss anything and eventually the answer is no and then you do your best to recap again

00:33:36.360 well if i were you i'd feel this way that way you know i would really be upset almost like your

00:33:40.320 partner doesn't care about you because you know how much trouble you've had with your ibs and how

00:33:43.640 much you spend on doctors and all this stuff right just making up a scenario in my head um

00:33:48.260 And then you like let it rest for a minute and you don't make decisions in that state. You just listen. You don't need to agree on facts that like someone's an asshole because they brought home coconut milk instead of almond milk. It's more like what this person is going through emotionally. And it's really important not to decide when you're sharing emotions, right?

00:34:06.460 And then at a time in the future, whether it's right away, usually not, but usually another time in the future, you will then switch roles and the other person can start to share what's happening emotionally.

00:34:17.160 And again, we're not agreeing on facts.

00:34:19.080 We don't need to agree on a fact.

00:34:21.060 We want to connect emotionally about what was someone's internal experience and what was the impact of someone's behavior on them.

00:34:27.300 And what you don't want to do is you don't want to explain yourself.

00:34:30.400 because when you explain yourself, well, I did that because, you know, yesterday I just, you

00:34:36.620 know, my friend was talking about almond milk. Like you don't want to explain yourself because

00:34:39.940 when you explain yourself, you're still missing the other person and the impact that your behavior

00:34:44.560 had on them. So whether or not you had good intentions, there was still an emotional impact.

00:34:49.740 And what you want to address in a real great active listening session is addressing the

00:34:54.260 emotional impact that behavior had, irregardless of intention, because this is not a court of law

00:34:59.020 and we're not trying to figure out the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter right

00:35:02.080 now we're just trying to listen to like how did my behavior impact you no matter what i intended

00:35:06.500 and that's a really important thing and when people are able to do that awesome stuff happens

00:35:11.120 it's a very difficult skill set especially if you've been in a relationship for a while there's

00:35:14.720 a lot of triggers there which is why you know getting a couple therapists who's trained in

00:35:18.020 that process from the couples institute might be a good first step for sure because um i've seen

00:35:23.800 like you know couples where like a girl uh the female might be like in a heterosexual relationship

00:35:27.560 like the example I just gave, well, when you, you know, you brought home the almond milk,

00:35:32.820 I really wanted coconut milk and it really upset me because my body or whatever. And then it's like,

00:35:37.180 cool, man, what'd you hear her say? And what he says is what I heard her say is I'm a piece of

00:35:41.040 shit and an awful husband. And like, that's not what she said. Right. So it's just, it's funny, 1.00

00:35:45.520 not funny to like, see how bad or good people aren't actually able to take in their partner

00:35:49.860 and listen. And it's everything. It's so important. That's great. That's, that's very

00:35:55.700 helpful that's pretty easy so if you're in a relationship with somebody or or not necessarily

00:36:01.720 romantic anybody and you guys yeah anybody you guys set each other off set aside a time during

00:36:08.000 the week calm down prior to that have one person address one subject that's bugging them and that

00:36:15.160 could be something that's traumatized them right sure yeah slowly and then have them talk about

00:36:21.000 how it made them feel and then you reiterate back to them potentially how it made them feel

00:36:26.260 yeah you what you try to say you try to say their words so like classic nlp is called mirroring

00:36:31.240 right so you try to mirror their words and use their language right so if they said i felt upset

00:36:35.320 don't say i felt angry right yeah i felt upset yeah and that's not inauthentic right that's just

00:36:40.480 like caring about someone they're wording and then you also say and if i were you i would feel x y and

00:36:45.860 z does that make sense and someone like no i don't feel that way i feel this way oh wow what did i

00:36:49.900 miss in that right the what i miss part is so valuable because it you don't have to be a perfect

00:36:54.640 listener you can like let yourself off the hook for like for that especially if you're if the

00:36:58.560 person goes is going really quickly i'm like well slow down hold on a second let me just see if i

00:37:02.120 can get this part right first because people will just unload sometimes and there needs to be a

00:37:06.580 little bit of container uh a little bit of container and limits and boundaries on the 0.52

00:37:11.240 conversation otherwise someone i've seen people go off like 15 minutes like how the fuck do i 0.84

00:37:15.740 recap that. It's like, it's like impossible, you know? Okay. That's really cool. So you can use 0.54

00:37:22.600 your relationships as therapy using those guidelines theoretically. Ready to regulate for

00:37:26.900 sure. Yeah. Great. Okay. Um, you mentioned the couples Institute, a therapist from the couples

00:37:33.260 Institute. So what is the couples Institute and how, how would you identify a good therapist?

00:37:37.680 Yeah. Uh, so, um, I'm so such a loaded question. Um, so number one, the number one thing I want

00:37:44.420 to tell you is that in today's day and age, people are modality obsessed and it drives me crazy,

00:37:49.420 right? I get like Mastin, what do you think about MDMA? What do you think about psilocybin? What do

00:37:52.780 you think about ayahuasca? What do you think about neurofeedback? What do you think about

00:37:55.520 brain spotting? Fill in the blank, whatever the modality is. I don't give a fuck what it is.

00:37:58.600 There's so many modalities, right? CBT, DBT, EMDR, EFT. I mean, there's so many things, right? 0.99

00:38:03.780 And it's like, it doesn't matter. I don't care about the modality because the first and most

00:38:08.540 important treatment in any type of personal development is safety between you and the

00:38:12.340 practitioner. So if you don't feel safe, then no modality is going to work. And even when you look

00:38:17.240 at the MAP studies that Mithoffler and Doblin are publishing on psilocybin and MDMA, they perceive

00:38:23.240 MDMA as making the therapy better, not as the protocol itself. So they're not saying MDMA is

00:38:31.460 doing this work. What they're saying is the therapy is enhanced X percent. The p-value is

00:38:38.200 this lower, much lower because of the MDMA, right? And there are specific protocols that go into

00:38:43.700 place there. So the number one thing that you want in a practitioner relationship is a safe

00:38:48.980 connection. And the practitioner needs to earn that from you. You don't have to just give someone

00:38:54.620 your trust because they're a fucking therapist, okay? Or it's coach or whatever. The practitioner 0.99

00:38:59.640 has to create the container of safety, number one. Number two, I always like to ask my practitioners,

00:39:05.360 like tell me about like your, not just your credentials, but like, what's your continuing

00:39:09.460 education? Like when was the last time you were like, what are you, what are you up to? What do

00:39:12.280 you care about? What are you learning about? I like to work with people who understand polyvagal

00:39:15.720 theory, who understand some version of attachment theory, uh, who have probably at least know who

00:39:21.040 Bessel van der Kolk is and have read the body keeps the score. Like if you're not in that world,

00:39:24.820 like I'm not really interested in working with you personally. Um, but that dyadic safety is

00:39:29.260 so important. So if someone says, well, I had a bad time with EMDR, typically what they really

00:39:33.700 me is that therapist I didn't feel safe with and therefore EMDR was a bad experience. And then

00:39:38.720 some people are like, what are you talking about? EMDR was amazing. They probably felt really safe

00:39:41.760 with their therapist or their coach, right? So you want to look at that safety and then you want to

00:39:45.860 understand like what their background is. And depending on what you need, different therapists

00:39:50.520 or coaches are contextually appropriate. Couples work specifically is so complex and there are lots

00:39:56.480 of couples therapists out there, but just because you're an LMFT does not mean you're good.

00:39:59.700 licensed marriage and family therapist does not mean you're very good because couples work is so

00:40:03.740 hard. It's so hard, right? So Dr. Ellen Bader at the Couples Institute specifically specializes

00:40:11.600 in taking a developmental approach, meaning what happened in your and your partner's history that's

00:40:16.300 creating this conflict? How do we help you guys differentiate to become two wholes together,

00:40:21.880 which is very difficult to do. And they also specifically focus on entrepreneurial couples

00:40:28.640 so that because when there's entrepreneur, entrepreneurial couples are like the stress

00:40:32.760 of what we go through all day, every day, especially if you're in partnership with

00:40:36.020 that person or have any, any type of business affiliation with that person, it's so complex.

00:40:42.620 And if you really think about it, how many well-regulated in-love couples are there that

00:40:46.660 are highly successful entrepreneurially? Very small number of people, right? Like it's easier

00:40:53.000 to get a billion dollars and go to Mars than it is to be in a well-regulated relationship

00:40:57.280 at that level, right?

00:40:59.500 And Elon Musk, if you ever hear the sound of my voice,

00:41:01.620 please do not take people who are traumatized to Mars

00:41:03.360 and not spread human suffering to another planet, okay?

00:41:06.720 Okay, please, please, please.

00:41:08.320 But like, it's very complex.

00:41:10.060 It's very complex what we're talking about.

00:41:12.840 And so, but you have to go to someone

00:41:14.160 who has produced the outcome that you want.

00:41:16.220 And Dr. Bader's work when it comes to,

00:41:17.660 I mean, yeah, Hendricks is great.

00:41:19.620 Gottman's great.

00:41:20.380 They're all great.

00:41:21.340 But Dr. Bader, and she is, 1.00

00:41:22.640 unfortunately, she does not have a big enough ego 1.00

00:41:24.400 to like put herself out there and to market herself.

00:41:26.220 but she's like to me the couples institute is like one of the best places in the world if you

00:41:29.460 want couples counseling that's good to know okay thank you let me see where does that lead me

00:41:38.360 you listed you're like people ask me about all these questions mdma therapy psilocybin it's like

00:41:44.740 that cuts off like 40 of my questions i can and we can talk about the efficacy of those things

00:41:50.020 for sure, but it's not where you start, you know? I, yeah, I don't, I think you covered what I

00:41:56.540 wanted to ask. What I wanted to ask was, does MDMA improve therapy? And you said,

00:42:01.680 it depends on the therapist. Yeah. And the scene and setting, like if you, if you go read the map

00:42:05.460 studies, right. Um, scene and setting is so important, right. Meaning like the environment

00:42:10.900 of like where the therapy is, they also have integration or prep sessions. Then they have,

00:42:16.640 MDMA session with integration sessions and then another one. And they do that with different

00:42:22.720 types of protocols, depending on what the patient or client is going through. But the efficacy of

00:42:27.980 MDMA is well verified. It's on the cusp of FDA approval. They're in phase three clinical trials

00:42:34.980 right now, and they're very, very close to FDA clinical trial or FDA approval. The first

00:42:42.120 psychedelic to get FDA approval, of course, is ketamine. And people have already been benefiting

00:42:46.800 from that tremendously. But again, it's the relationship that matters first. And if you

00:42:52.380 look in the maps history, right, this is public information. There was one instance, I think in

00:42:56.580 the phase two clinical trials where some of the therapists were married couple who are facilitating

00:43:03.220 some of this stuff. And the connection was so strong between the male partner and one of the

00:43:09.500 clients that ended up having an affair because of the connection. And so if you're going to get

00:43:14.480 into ayahuasca, psilocybin, MDMA, psychedelic world stuff, okay? Like, first of all, please

00:43:21.300 do not work with a shaman who went to Peru once and says he's a shaman for God's sake. Okay.

00:43:25.400 Please don't do that. Right? No cuddle puddles allowed. We're not into like, let's just touch

00:43:30.140 each other and be naked and like none of that shit. Okay. We're not doing that. Right? We got 0.99

00:43:34.760 to be in a sacred, safe environment, okay? Because the ayahuasca or the MDMA or whatever

00:43:39.900 is not the agent of change. It's your psyche and the therapeutic relationship with that

00:43:47.220 substance aiding in expanding your window of tolerance, in helping you access memories that

00:43:56.940 weren't accessible before, in creating temporary neuroplasticity so that you can depersonalize

00:44:02.040 trauma and view it through the lens of your prefrontal cortex versus being so associated

00:44:05.500 with your limbic system. Like there's a lot of beautiful things that can happen. And I've heard

00:44:09.020 horror stories too. So it's not the drug itself. It's not the thing itself. It's the scene setting

00:44:15.660 and therapeutic relationship that matters most. Okay. That, that totally makes sense.

00:44:22.280 Awesome. What, what happens if you've gone to a number of therapists and you've had

00:44:27.460 bad, bad relationship with them multiple times. And now the idea of therapy is kind of triggering.

00:44:33.920 Yeah. I don't want to come off sounding like I'm against therapists because I have therapists. I

00:44:38.040 love therapists. So it's kind of like when you're, I like to put everything back to dating, even

00:44:43.760 though you don't date your therapist, but people understand dating usually pretty simply, right?

00:44:48.220 So it's like, if you've dated the same guy or girl in different shoes five or six times,

00:44:52.940 you have to ask yourself, why do you pick that person? Right. And there are people who will

00:44:57.340 pick therapists who they know will either just let them talk, right. Or on some level, they don't

00:45:04.300 feel safe with because it's actually a subconscious way of not moving forward. Right. And I did that

00:45:10.140 for a long time. I got to a point where I realized I'm not making progress in therapy. I'm talking

00:45:13.920 the whole time. Holy shit. I'm smarter than my therapist. Right. So I had to go find people who 1.00

00:45:19.340 could like hear me do my thing and be all whatever charismatic, excited, take your energy that I

00:45:24.500 bring? And they'd be like, yeah, actually, you know what? And then like house of cards falls,

00:45:28.340 right? So you have to ask yourself if you're really committed to change. And also it's about

00:45:32.680 presencing in your body. Do you feel safe with this person? Just like in a relationship, right?

00:45:37.680 Do you actually feel safe with this person? And that gets back to your own interoception,

00:45:41.780 which is your ability to perceive what's happening inside your body and how aware of it you are.

00:45:46.640 And, you know, like go a little slower, like test them out, ask some questions, push back,

00:45:51.180 Like therapists and coach, trauma-informed coaches are not God, right?

00:45:55.480 They're usually pretty good, but just because someone's a therapist does not mean that they're

00:46:00.360 good at what they do.

00:46:01.140 Like they mean, it means they're a great student does not mean they're a great practitioner.

00:46:06.400 I didn't consider that before.

00:46:07.980 So you could actually poke around in their background a little bit to gain some trust.

00:46:11.620 A hundred percent.

00:46:12.220 Yes.

00:46:12.780 A hundred percent.

00:46:13.280 Yes.

00:46:13.720 Yeah.

00:46:13.960 Without that trust.

00:46:14.640 It's like, it's how could you, how could you possibly reveal things?

00:46:17.380 you know it's not it's not it's not it's not appropriate for sure and anyone who's offended

00:46:22.080 by that like that's a red flag right there get out yeah okay fair enough how can you tell the

00:46:28.900 difference between a trauma response and healthy fear of something um i would argue they're both

00:46:37.520 trauma responses because if you think about it everything is kind of a trauma response right

00:46:42.480 like even like the skin that we have right is a trauma response because we had to develop skin

00:46:47.080 because we needed to have some type of like boundary

00:46:49.560 between our organs and the world, right?

00:46:52.400 So the question is, does it take you out or not, right?

00:46:55.860 Because everything has a level of trauma

00:46:58.580 and especially if you're growing, right?

00:46:59.740 If you're growing personally, professionally

00:47:01.340 in a relationship, you're gonna be in a tension zone.

00:47:04.020 Like tension is like where you're gonna live

00:47:05.780 most of the time, right?

00:47:06.580 How do you grow muscle?

00:47:07.260 Time under tension, right?

00:47:08.680 Microtrauma.

00:47:09.180 So like microtrauma when you're training,

00:47:11.480 that's trauma response too.

00:47:13.000 The question is, does it take you out or not, right?

00:47:15.780 And am I living in a trauma response that's preventing my future from being bigger or not?

00:47:20.420 And what I typically do is, is if I'm in a response, I'm not going to go, is this intuition or is this trauma?

00:47:26.440 I'm going to go, I'm going to literally take my hands and go, okay, where do I feel that in my body?

00:47:30.700 I'm going to go like maybe right to my diaphragm.

00:47:32.920 I'm going to bring my awareness there.

00:47:34.620 I go, all right, what am I feeling? 1.00

00:47:37.640 Oh, fuck. 1.00

00:47:38.140 That's like panic. 1.00

00:47:39.140 Okay, great.

00:47:39.660 Awesome.

00:47:40.060 Cool.

00:47:40.260 And then a great question.

00:47:41.040 How old do you think I am?

00:47:42.900 How old do you think I am?

00:47:43.660 and the answer is like three okay cool awesome what are you trying to keep me safe from oh that

00:47:48.960 time when your parents left the babysitter whatever right like all that stuff starts

00:47:52.480 to come up right it's like cool thank you for being here um do you know how old i am now the

00:48:01.200 answer is usually no right and i've i've done this with my parts they still don't always know

00:48:05.440 how old i am i've not told them 100 times right because there is this automatic response it's

00:48:09.200 like cool i got this now like you want to come with me like you want to move forward with me

00:48:13.240 right? And typically when you befriend it and you listen to it and you talk to it, it tends to chill

00:48:19.720 out because it's usually there's a response in the body that wants your attention. And instead

00:48:24.700 of pushing it away, like maybe your parents did, you pause. You don't say, how do I let go of this?

00:48:29.300 How do I do holotropic breath work to make you go away? Because a lot of these like personal

00:48:33.000 development modalities make parts unwelcome, right? So it's not that they're bad. I love all

00:48:38.480 the modalities. But if your approach with the modality is this part of me is not welcome here,

00:48:44.220 how do I make it be quiet? It's going to speak louder eventually. So instead of like trying to

00:48:50.720 breathe it away or Wim Hof it away, which again, I do all that stuff, but we want to go towards it

00:48:55.940 and like literally start to listen to that part of our body go, what's up? And not called a limiting

00:49:01.380 belief because there's no such thing as a limiting belief. It's a survival response. And we say, cool.

00:49:05.300 you know what i'll take that into consideration you know what just this morning actually i was

00:49:09.980 doing a meditation and i felt it in my solar plexus and i was like why are you here like i

00:49:15.780 should be fine it was like maston don't lose your self-respect in the specific situation i was going

00:49:21.020 through right now and i was like i feel like i respect myself but this part was like i'm really

00:49:25.600 worried that you're going to lose your self-respect again right because you're going to be in this

00:49:29.760 relationship where you're giving more than you're receiving like i was like oh thanks for that okay

00:49:35.160 cool i'll be on the lookout for that and all of a sudden it relaxed right and it was like this part

00:49:40.400 wanted me to just go hey don't forget and it's not like there's nothing wrong with that it was

00:49:45.280 just like a cool awesome thanks for the information i proceed with my day right so that level of

00:49:49.620 befriending is super important if we push things away that's when they get louder and things tend

00:49:54.120 to get uh much worse so that that befriending turning towards something is a much more uh

00:50:00.340 efficient process for sure and you know internal family systems therapy is probably one of the

00:50:04.780 best documented processes for how to do that. We don't do internal family systems in our practice

00:50:09.820 that we do do parts work in a different way. But IFS is a great therapy to look into if you're

00:50:14.000 looking for like peer reviewed data on the efficacy of what I'm talking about. There's a

00:50:18.420 bunch of it out there on that modality. Okay. I'm going to need to prod into that a little bit.

00:50:24.820 Internal family systems therapy? Yes. By Dr. Richard Swartz. He was a family therapist who

00:50:29.480 studied with Virginia Satir, who basically realized that there's also, there's not just

00:50:33.680 an external family, but there's also an internal family. Um, and so he was, he's someone who's

00:50:38.840 really made parts work. Um, and there's many different ways to do parts work. Like IFS is

00:50:43.440 one modality. Um, but, uh, he's one, he, he really, he was, he worked with a lot of like,

00:50:48.700 uh, multiple personality or disability identity disordered patients and started to realize that

00:50:53.060 like everybody has multiplicity in their psyche. We all have different parts of our personalities,

00:50:57.300 right? It's actually not a pathology to have multiple parts of our personality.

00:51:01.240 The problem is when they don't know about each other, they're not introduced to each

00:51:03.920 other, they don't get along.

00:51:04.860 That's when we get ambivalence, internal conflict.

00:51:07.540 And so IFS is one great modality to do parts work, functional coaching that we do.

00:51:12.800 Also awesome.

00:51:13.640 The difference is they have way more peer-reviewed studies than we do at the moment, which is 0.97

00:51:17.080 why I always like to point people towards efficacy and not just my shit. 0.89

00:51:21.200 But parts work is real and valid and works. 0.88

00:51:24.620 And the more you turn towards it versus try to escape it, the better.

00:51:29.120 Okay.

00:51:29.560 Okay. You might have to delve into what parts work is a little bit.

00:51:33.080 Okay. Um, so when you're triggered, um, so parts, so we have, we have every emotional state that

00:51:39.500 you're in is a different part of your psyche. Okay. And when you get triggered or when you're

00:51:46.100 happy, those are different parts. And so, you know, you probably feel anxiety differently in

00:51:50.680 your body than you would feel depression, different than you would feel joy, different

00:51:53.560 than you would feel frustration. Um, those are all different parts. And so what happens is usually

00:51:57.500 we focus on negative emotions, but you can do it for positive emotions too. Let me rephrase that.

00:52:03.360 Uncomfortable emotions. There's no such thing as a negative emotion. Badmastin. Okay. Just

00:52:08.160 uncomfortable emotions and comfortable emotions. So if you have anxiety, right? It's like, cool.

00:52:13.540 Where do you feel that in your body? Well, usually it's like somewhere, you know, chest or throat or

00:52:17.620 somewhere. It depends on where it is for somebody. We go there and we go, cool. How old do you think

00:52:21.400 I am? And the answer is typically not how old you are right now. And it's like, what do you try to

00:52:26.160 keep me safe from? And then the answer is, you know, based on your history. Now, sometimes when

00:52:31.500 you bring an awareness to a part, it either gets quiet, which is another part trying to keep it

00:52:35.520 quiet, or you like, you hate the stress. And all of a sudden, in a different part of my body,

00:52:40.620 I have this like anger towards this part, which is another part, right? It's like, whoa, okay,

00:52:45.220 how old do you think I am? And maybe we're a little bit older now. Maybe we're a teenager

00:52:47.840 who's pissed off at this part, right? For not speaking up, right? Right. And then all of a

00:52:51.620 sudden it's like oh my god i'm so sad why because every time i get angry right i just blow up my

00:52:57.520 relationships those are three different parts we've just discovered right and so it's like and

00:53:02.340 they don't know about each other and they don't get along and they're all different ages so what

00:53:05.960 we have to start to do is understand that like we have all these different parts that are happening

00:53:10.140 and the part that wants to run the show in ifs is called the self you in polyvagal theory it's

00:53:15.940 called your ventral vagal system spiritual traditions will call it your spirit or your soul

00:53:19.560 but you can access self-energy very quickly if you're someone who knows what they're doing

00:53:25.220 and ultimately what we want is when you start to feel compassion and love or understanding

00:53:31.000 towards other parts and what they've been through and the burdens that they've carrying

00:53:33.920 that's that self-energy that starts to emerge and what you want to do is start to let that part

00:53:39.720 lead these other parts because there's a term called being parentified which is usually when

00:53:44.180 you're younger you don't have competent parents you end up kind of like taking on more of a burden

00:53:49.260 than you should have, and you become a parentified child who's taking on more responsibility than

00:53:53.320 they should have, that then gets multiplied inside your body where there's all these different parts

00:53:57.360 of your psyche that took on more than they should have, never having that internal access to self

00:54:01.520 energy or to your spirit to actually guide them. And so ultimately, what we want is we want to have

00:54:07.540 all those parts be voiced, understand how old they are, to start to get along and understand each

00:54:11.720 other, and to be introduced to the self or to the soul or to the spirit, to let that part of you

00:54:16.120 drive. And that's like really a valuable process because when you're in that self, it's called

00:54:20.720 Richard Schwartz called it self-leadership. When you're in self-leadership, then like those parts

00:54:26.020 can come up and actually have a conversation with that soul self or that self energy and start to

00:54:31.200 be validated and understood versus like trying to run the show. And when they start to realize that

00:54:35.860 the self is competent and able and will keep you safe, they start to chill out and do other things

00:54:41.400 with their time and energy besides drama and conflict and stuff like that, because mostly

00:54:44.840 parts want to have fun and not fuck up your life or slow you down but if it's going to result in

00:54:50.520 injury they're going to speak up really loudly and so it's a it's a process and it takes time

00:54:54.620 to wire that connection right because our neural pathways have to be created but um ultimately

00:54:58.940 that's sort of parts work 101 i think i said a lot of stuff really quickly but that's basically

00:55:02.800 what parts work is and it's really it's a beautiful process and it takes a lot of the

00:55:06.540 onus off the therapist to be this regulator or the coach to be this regulator because you're

00:55:10.300 always turning someone back into their, their internal sense of agency and self, um, which is

00:55:15.100 usually more valuable than, um, you know, having to always go to them for some answer or something

00:55:20.600 like that. That's fascinating. Okay. That was, that was really cool. And it totally makes sense.

00:55:28.480 Like when I get, um, I'm pretty, I'm pretty stuck in fight, fight or flight. And I've been stuck in

00:55:34.840 that for like, I got out of it when I got healthy and my SSRI withdrawal went away. Then my mom got

00:55:40.180 cancer then my dad almost died and it was just like and so now i'm stuck in it and i'm totally

00:55:45.180 aware that i'm stuck in it so small situations will you know shock me and then my brain will 0.96

00:55:51.760 go over here and be like nah and then it takes 18 hours until i'm like fuck finally that's over

00:55:56.860 yeah but i have noticed that when i get that fear response which is somewhere like here if i get 0.61

00:56:03.060 that fear response i get angry instantly because that's how i've learned to kind of cope with being

00:56:09.860 scared was, well, being scared and like shocked isn't useful. At least being angry gets you to

00:56:15.780 do something. Right. But it's not, you know, working its way out or anything. I haven't heard

00:56:20.340 of this part. We can do a little version of that right now. If you want, I don't know what you

00:56:24.680 feel comfortable not doing, but we can, we can try. Okay. So do you know where you feel that

00:56:30.000 fear in your body? Yeah, it's in a couple of places. I get really cold arms. So my arms kind

00:56:39.080 of hurt and then it's like i would say it's in my forearms and my hands is it most intense in

00:56:44.740 your forearms and hands or in your shoulders muscles are so large yeah those traps is it

00:56:50.080 more in the shoulders and traps or is it more in the arms um it's probably in the shoulders okay

00:56:57.460 so let's just try something for a second you can keep your eyes open or closed but

00:57:00.620 go to those shoulders when they're in that kind of tense response and ask them how old they think

00:57:06.280 you are. Oh, I know how old they are right away. Seven. Okay, cool. Now, when you're feeling that

00:57:11.660 fear at seven, where do you feel that angry part? Probably solar plexus. Okay. So let's go there for

00:57:24.280 a second and see if you can feel that anger too. And then ask the anger, how old do you think I am?

00:57:31.020 I'd be 12. Okay. So we're almost teenager, right? Got it. Yeah. That's about, that sounds about

00:57:35.600 right. All right. So ask the 12 year old, like, what is it trying to keep you safe from with all

00:57:39.180 this anger? I think the anger is directed at the medical system. A lot of it. And I think I was

00:57:47.180 diagnosed with arthritis when I was seven. Okay. So it's angry because I probably got hurt in there.

00:57:59.840 So they hurt me. They didn't take care of me. So when I was scared, they didn't take care of me.

00:58:06.260 So in a lot of ways, it's almost like I'm going to be mad because I'm going to take care of me now because you can't.

00:58:11.600 Does that seem right?

00:58:12.500 Yes.

00:58:12.780 Okay.

00:58:13.280 Ask the anger.

00:58:14.300 If you, if it knew that you had a self, a higher self or a soul self or a self, um, an adult part of you, um, that could take care of you, what would it rather be doing with its time?

00:58:28.060 Playing.

00:58:28.580 Yeah.

00:58:28.880 Like outdoor playing.

00:58:30.180 Yeah.

00:58:30.460 Yeah.

00:58:30.980 But I can't because I'll be scared, vulnerable and hurt again, basically.

00:58:34.240 is that what it thinks yeah yeah i like that that makes sense and how do you feel towards that part

00:58:41.020 when you think about it being 12 and scared and arthritis and the diagnosis and no one taking

00:58:45.840 care of you in the medical system like how do you feel towards that part that's angry

00:58:48.880 sad it's gonna make me cry and where do you feel sadness

00:58:54.000 here for sure here okay so ask this ask the throat and that part how old it thinks you are

00:59:01.900 maybe 17 so it's older like oh my god i just want this to stop

00:59:10.920 yeah awful and how do you feel towards that 17 year old that's just sad it's sad yeah so it's

00:59:19.820 the same part the same sad part yeah so check this out okay first of all thank you for letting me

00:59:25.940 like actually have this this part of it with you this is really special thank you for coming on

00:59:31.260 and teaching me about this.

00:59:32.540 So watch this for a second, okay?

00:59:34.280 Let's see if you can take that sad part

00:59:35.780 just for a moment.

00:59:36.660 We're not going to get rid of it.

00:59:37.880 We understand it's sad.

00:59:39.220 It has really good reasons to be sad.

00:59:40.780 But imagine taking it

00:59:42.300 and just bringing it outside your body

00:59:44.100 two or three feet,

00:59:45.720 almost just like you're holding it

00:59:47.060 in front of you and you see it.

00:59:49.080 But it's not in here anymore.

00:59:50.920 It's right here.

00:59:52.280 So you're not getting rid of it.

00:59:53.500 You're just kind of putting it over here.

00:59:55.900 Okay.

00:59:56.700 What's left after that sadness is gone?

01:00:01.260 i don't know i don't know nothing clear so something that's not clear it definitely feels 0.98

01:00:13.720 better yeah but better like and i bet that angry part's like this motherfucker what's going on 0.88

01:00:18.640 right here i don't know can i trust it it's just an experiment what would be left if the sadness 0.95

01:00:25.040 was gone in this area right here probably relief yeah that's nice right yeah yeah and so how does

01:00:33.080 that relief feel towards the anger i'm not feeling much of anything emotional at the moment that's

01:00:43.600 nice so i don't know how come so no blase no no but that's actually a good thing like the anger

01:00:48.540 discharged how come i have no idea let's go back to the sore plexus and ask it like where'd you go

01:00:56.980 you're a 12 year old what happened i got bored apparently oh it sounds like i'll just kind of

01:01:04.640 i'll fast forward a little bit what happened okay you had recognition and i did not mean to make you

01:01:10.160 cry i apologize um but what you did is we had a recognition and then we actually literally was

01:01:15.380 called unblended from that sadness and we actually took it outside your body just for a moment

01:01:19.480 which actually made you realize that there's something else there which is just this i just

01:01:22.820 want this relief right and like that is a very valuable way we're not going to take the sadness 0.99

01:01:28.280 and say fuck off or drink it away or travel away or get angry or whatever we're just going to sit 0.96

01:01:32.720 with it and like a daily practice a really great daily practice could be like to sit with like 1.00

01:01:36.760 literally hand here hand on solar plexus like all right guys like tell me more and like let them

01:01:41.860 kind of be there and vent and then kind of decide to kind of move them outside your body and go

01:01:45.540 what's left and the thing about trauma work is that we want to start to learn how to make it safe 0.81

01:01:50.520 to feel safe because all these parts are trying to keep us safe and drive and make shit happen

01:01:57.500 it's like i can't trust me i have my own medical system anger as well because of what it did to my

01:02:01.780 mom but it's like at the end of the day the part of you that's intuitive and feminine um is going

01:02:07.740 to be the part that's going to keep you the most safe it's just that the world when you were younger

01:02:12.180 wasn't able to keep that part safe and so it's been like wrapped up in all these different parts

01:02:15.920 and we can start to just kind of unblend them a little bit and go what's left and we have relief

01:02:20.340 there it could be scary to feel relief because there's like something i have to defend against 0.99

01:02:23.740 still but that's still usually typically that anger that's like whoa these motherfuckers aren't 0.99

01:02:28.680 gonna take care of me like what's going on here yeah i got this now by the way does that 12 year 0.99

01:02:33.020 old know how old you are now i think i'm back at the age i'm supposed to be i don't even feel the

01:02:39.980 12 year old anymore it's so amazing right but what about the fear in your shoulders

01:02:43.780 no it's still there a little bit but it's definitely like i feel better yeah that's

01:02:49.840 really sneaky isn't that cool yeah i mean it's not sneaky it's it's cool i've been trying to

01:02:54.340 learn ways like yeah it is that was very efficient and i was surprised about the like

01:03:00.120 it's interesting like put the emotion outside and look at it so it's not really like

01:03:06.200 stuffing it down and not looking at it it's like remove it acknowledge it that's right it's okay

01:03:11.920 that you're experiencing that that's right and when you move something outside your body you're

01:03:15.240 depersonalizing it and you're using your executive function neocortex to look at it versus being in

01:03:20.000 your limbic system where it's just kind of controlling you and it's like it's like who you

01:03:23.160 are versus like it's out here and now i'm looking at it so it's not who i am it's what i'm looking

01:03:27.780 at. And then you can observe it and give it what it needed. And typically, no dig on parents

01:03:33.260 specifically, but typically every parent has mistakes they've made. But typically when we

01:03:37.740 have these things come up, it's a level of parenting that we didn't get for whatever reason,

01:03:41.720 right? We didn't have that part acknowledged or understood or taken care of for whatever reason.

01:03:46.380 And so it's a really beautiful reparenting process. And if you want outside the podcast,

01:03:50.300 I'd be happy to actually guide you to an actual process because this is like a very brief process

01:03:54.220 of it. So you can have like a more, uh, private experience of it, obviously. Um, but it's very,

01:03:59.880 it's very, very simple, um, and efficient and you don't need to take drugs. Um, and it just,

01:04:03.880 it's just like turning towards can be very valuable if you know the process. And so that's a,

01:04:08.220 that's a little bit of parts work right there. That was really cool. Okay. Awesome. And I like

01:04:13.560 that that that's like, it's really, it's, it's not exactly confronting it, but it's certainly

01:04:18.620 not hiding. And sometimes when I know for me, at least when I have these emotions come up,

01:04:22.720 i'm like i i don't want to be it's like i don't want to be weak so if i get scared or sad mostly

01:04:28.660 like i don't want to be weak i'll get angry instead but then i've noticed and the older

01:04:32.980 i've gotten i've become more aware that like you get sad you experience this if you stuff it down

01:04:37.160 it doesn't go away it's just stuck somewhere and then you have to experience it later or something

01:04:41.100 terrible happens like who knows but uh it is better to like bring it up and identify it instead

01:04:47.620 of running yeah and it actually it actually is the opposite of weakness because if you think

01:04:51.660 about what makes something weak, it's usually more brittle or inflexible it is the weaker it is

01:04:55.920 when you can actually surf your nervous system and understand its responses and turn towards it,

01:05:01.180 you actually create more emotional pliability and flexibility, which actually makes you stronger

01:05:04.740 because, you know, look at Tom Brady, right? Like he's not ripped in a, in a traditional sense,

01:05:10.400 but the dude's 44 and the most pliable dude on the, on the, on the turf, because he works on his,

01:05:16.320 uh, physical pliability, like every single day. It's why he signs a four-year contract

01:05:20.560 to like 48 or whatever now, right?

01:05:22.540 He's won seven Super Bowls

01:05:24.120 because he's so pliable, right?

01:05:25.860 So like literally emotional flexibility

01:05:27.700 and pliability is the opposite of weakness.

01:05:29.700 It's just that in a very patriarchal society,

01:05:31.960 showing emotion is perceived as weakness,

01:05:35.040 but that's not what the neuroscience says.

01:05:40.200 And the majority of the issues we're having today

01:05:41.860 are because people don't know how to turn

01:05:43.440 towards those feelings.

01:05:44.780 And on the other side of those feelings

01:05:46.460 is relief and wisdom and intuition.

01:05:48.740 And in your case, 1.00

01:05:49.260 probably a lot of feminine energy um that's looking for expression in a different way 0.99

01:05:53.220 um and that's uh that's like that's like where all the good stuff is that the play the fun and

01:05:56.920 playing and fun are the biochemical opposites of trauma right um yeah and so there's other ways to

01:06:02.280 take care of those younger traumatized parts besides anger and anger by the way has a lot

01:06:06.820 of efficacy when you get angry there's some data to suggest that if it's like you have an angry

01:06:12.200 while you finally get angry it can actually start to stimulate your immune system um so there is a

01:06:17.520 value in that and biochemically anger isn't amphetamine and it isn't emotion of agency or

01:06:22.180 power. Um, but it's not a great place to live day to day because you will burn out a lot of things.

01:06:28.500 Um, and the ventral part, the ventral vagal regulated self, the self energy is actually a

01:06:34.100 more competent protector. Um, it's just a subtler energy to access. Um, but yeah, that was really

01:06:40.620 cool. And, um, yeah, I mean, by the way, you're a total badass and this process is more just about

01:06:46.200 elevating that. And it's cool that you're able to actually like do this on a podcast and let

01:06:50.880 people see it because I think that's also a real leadership and strength because a lot of people

01:06:55.120 would be like, you know, too cool for school or too nervous, but you're like, no, let's just try

01:06:59.260 it, which I think is like so cool to lead by example. Thank you. Well, thank you for showing

01:07:03.120 me that. That was really interesting. You've said a couple of things during the podcast that

01:07:06.680 remind me of things my dad has said. Like one of them was the importance of play was if you're ever

01:07:12.840 in a state of play or you're with a group of people and you're all playing that's like that's

01:07:17.720 perfection it is 100 everyone's calm everyone's working together like that's heaven it is literally

01:07:24.700 and it's also the the highest function of uh of your nervous system like you're using your most

01:07:29.900 advanced parts right your neocortex frontal lobe your ventral vagal system your endorphin system

01:07:35.160 by the way the majority of our opiate receptors are in our prefrontal cortex right so when we're

01:07:38.640 feeling joy and play and fun. That's like a neocortex higher vibration because it's literally

01:07:44.000 in the highest form of our nervous system. Um, and you know, when animals are playing together,

01:07:48.220 they're cooperating and thriving. Usually they're not in stress and fear. So a hundred percent.

01:07:52.360 Yeah. Cool. Okay. Mastin, thank you very much. That was fascinating. Um, where can people that,

01:08:00.160 well, and you came on super fast. That was great. I learned a bunch. We will connect after.

01:08:04.000 yes uh where where can people find you um uh just maston kip m-a-s-t-i-n-k-i-p-p.com and then

01:08:11.540 usually at maston kip on all the things um and i spend most of my time on instagram these days

01:08:16.400 thinking about getting on tiktoks i've been on tiktok but actually utilizing it soon

01:08:19.740 um but maston kip.com and at maston kip on all the all the sites okay thank you very much my pleasure

01:08:34.000 Thank you.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - August 03, 2021

101. Deal with Stress and Trauma Effectively ｜ Mastin Kipp

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